| Well where do I start ! Back in 1991 at the tender age of 14, I was struck with the illness M.E. which had a massive impact on my life and saw me having to leave school as I was so ill. I started to make Fimo Jewellery to relieve the boredom of been at home constantly and having no contact with the outside world. Maybe a year later I started selling at Craft fairs with great success. From there it progressed and at 18 I set up my original company “ Bead-Azzle Jewellery” . Although still far from well ,I managed to retail at shows and fairs and sell handmade beads to a large retailer in Leeds.
A year later saw the opening of a family run gift shop in Barnsley town centre which then gave me free rein to expand into general handmade giftware and I was one of the first people to start making hand made cards! (strange to think now as its such a big industry!) After a four year run and a change in personal circumstances the shop closed.
That takes us to 2001 when I started to sell motifs via mail order with astounding results as card making was becoming very popular and there weren’t many suppliers of quality items at that point. To a degree I was a victim of my own success and remember very clearly at one point where my delivery had gone to 28 days as orders just piled up every day and I was still quite ill at that point and couldn‘t physically produce enough stock for the demand. Towards the end of 2003 the internet had become very popular and lots of new suppliers were springing up left right and centre and I found mail order to gradually be getting slower. Not to be defeated I started selling to some of the biggest UK internet companies as I couldn’t afford to set my own online shop up. That takes me to now ( its Nov 05, as I am writing this), Although I have kept a mail order catalogue to the present day, retail orders have been few and far between via mail and have mostly just supplied to trade customers for the past two years, some of you may have dropped on me at Craft Fairs/Stamp shows also!
So as 2005 ends and 2006 approaches I figured it was time for a name change, as Bead-Azzle wasn’t appropriate anymore! So here it is the launch of Motifmania, the all swinging and dancing and fully functioning e commerce website!
At the minute the Christmas section is limited but I will be adding an extensive collection of brand new designs and exclusive ranges for June 2006, so they’ll be available in plenty of time for Christmas!
It has taken me a long, long time to get here, none of it has happened overnight and I have worked some very long hours ! Your orders and support will always be greatly appreciated. Although I haven’t had a proper count up I will be starting off with roughly 150 products but will add new items regularly. I am initially concentrating on supplying hand made motifs but will hopefully expand into other items such as cards blanks, paper, materials etc as my customer base grows.
Thank you for reading this!
Rebecca Waumsley, May 2006.
| 
